Druidic Cultivation | Eight

Feng Jiao watched as the girl’s started their awakening but didn’t really have his heart on the event. After his awakening, he wanted nothing but to commune with his martial spirit. As a tree, he’d never been able to communicate with the raptor but now they had reincarnated together, and Jiao could not be happier about that. Still, he tried to take note of the proceedings for the rest of the day.

From the six hundred girls, several were recruited directly into large sects with grade six martial spirits, the sects needed to make up their numbers and could no longer wait for more core formation grade spirits to appear. Of the six hundred petite girls, only four of them had core formation martial spirits and all were of grade seven. Two of them joined the Yellow Maned Lion Sect, one went with the Black Warrior Sect, and a final one also decided to join the God Tree Grove. Feng Jiao missed her name, but her martial spirit had been a large coiling vine snake with purple budding flowers along its body.

“Is there any sect here willing to recruit a disciple with a martial spirit graded from one to three?” The head overseer took the stage after the awakenings finished and started pushing things along. The ceremony had started with the rising sun and progressed until it was directly overhead before finishing. There were no sects willing to recruit disciples with “failure” grade spirits, so they were all dismissed. 

From there, the head overseer called forth all grade six disciple hopefuls and allowed the sect scouts to make their pitches to the ones they’d had their eyes on. The few children who’d awoken spirits over grade six had been directly recruited already, so they decided to work from the top to the bottom after dismissing the trash. Several peak-grade six disciples had already been recruited as they tested, but now the sects picked and choose from the mid-grade and bare-grade talents as well.

Several children were not selected after the first round as only the top sects were allowed to pick first, an unspoken rule of this event. Surprisingly, a large portion of the Dasenlin nationals were recruited into the Black Warrior Sect. It set a very dangerous precedent for the awakening ceremonies in Dasenlin and many people worried that external nations would begin poaching their talents. Unsurprising to Feng Jiao but still upsetting to others, several invitations were declined by those who wished to join the God Tree Grove. Many saw the talents flock there and felt that a rising tide would life all boats.

Of the grade six talents that weren’t, many requested a top tier sect of their choice. Several were declined and few were accepted, the large sects had just selected their choices after all so why would they go back for seconds? The rejects and the remainders selected mid-tier sects and were almost unanimously accepted, only a few rejected from the God Tree Grove. It didn’t take much to notice that those rejected from the God Tree Grove had been those whose request to join a top-tier sect had been rejected as well. Everyone took note that the God Tree Grove did not want to be anybody’s backup choice.

With that mentality, a much larger portion of the grade five talents did not petition the top-tier sects and directly requested admission into the God Tree Grove. In their eyes, it wouldn't be long before the God Tree Grove broke the shackles of mid-tierdom and stepped into the elite. That made it a solid choice amongst those who desired the respect that came with being a disciple of a top tier sect and solidified the God Tree Grove’s position as the number one mid-tier sect in Dasenlin.

“Oh dear, sister, did we bring enough investment pellets for all of these young talents that we are getting this year?” One of the young women asked a fellow God Tree Grove envoy with laughing eyes, obviously mocking the top tier sects. Every year, the top tier sects would reject talents not because they were poor, but because they needed to retain the image of being elite. With the God Tree Grove experiencing such a large growth, they were unable to get any fifth or fourth tier talents. 

Without those, it would be impossible to fill in all their openings for outer core disciples. None of the fifth-grade talents even requested to join their sects, fearful of consecutive rejections from the top-tier guild and then the God Tree Grove. The God Tree Grove’s strategy of rejecting all those that chose them second was wickedly effective and hunting everybody else’s bottom line. They could only grind their teeth in fury, unable to request the lower grade talents directly because they would lose face.

“Why, of course we did. Everybody knows how plentiful the spiritual medicines in our mountain range are! We are one of the leading sects when it comes to producing brewers and pill masters, and one of the wealthiest sects here regardless of our size.” The lead scout for the God Tree Grove let out another giggle. She was giddy with the results of their current recruitment and knew that she would be rewarded well when they returned. 

The recruitment phase of the awakening ceremony wrapped up nearly an hour later and the results were surprising for many. The Sect scouts walked through the groups they’d accepted and passed out minor cultivation pills to each child, telling them to return for the martial competition when they believed they were ready to leave home and come to the sect, with fifteen being the latest they would accept anyone. The children separated themselves into groups based on which sect they’d joined and walked to the bleachers together, getting to know their future brother and sister juniors.

Several of the commoners watched and were surprised on how many children choose to apply for the God Tree Grove compared to the few that were selected by the larger sects like the Boulder Crab Sect or Yellow Maned Lion. Even the guest, Black Warrior Sect, had several more children than their nation’s top sects! Truly, their standards were too high.

In the martial competition, which started directly afterwards, the children would spar and show off their accomplishments in cultivation. The average age was fourteen for the boys and thirteen for the girls, neither group wanting to wait until the deadline before going to the sects they’d decided. They knew they would get more opportunities for cultivation resources and martial manuals if they were younger.

From this, Feng Jiao learned that the average cultivation of these talents was the fourth or sixth stage of Mortal Awakening, depending on the child’s gender and talent. There were even several children who had reached the late stages of Mortal Awakening, the dark horse talents of past awakening ceremonies. Feng Jiao knew that with his friend that he’d already lived and died with, he’d be able to leave the other kids in his dust when it came to comparing cultivation speeds.

The path of martial arts was divided into several nine stage tiers. The first three tiers, which made up the Realm of Mortals, were Mortal Awakening, Mortal Sculpting, and Mortal Forging, respectively. Each tier was composed of nine realms and had a qualitative improvement as one reached the next. The Mortal awakening, which most of these children were still suspended in, was the stage in which one synchronized with their newly awakened martial spirit and cleansed their body while opening their meridians. 

The ranking one’s martial spirit played a large part in the speed that one could plow through the first tier, along with cultivation resources to improve Qi gathering speeds and personal synchronization with the martial spirit. As long as one’s heart of martial arts aligned with that of their martial spirit, the efficiency of their cooperation would sky rocket. This was especially important for those with higher graded martial spirits as they would require more Qi to grow their spirit’s capability in the future. 

After the Awakening stage was the Mortal Sculpting stage. During this stage one was expected to start refining large amounts of Qi and use them to improve upon their skin, muscles, senses, and finally their marrow and meridians. The meridians were partially opened during the awakening stage but perfected after improving the rest of one’s body. After flesh and organs were improved, their capability to carry Qi through the body improved drastically.

Finally, after all the changes to the flesh of one’s body, the Mortal Forging realm concentrated on improving upon the foundations. Bones were hardened and the spirit was refined and toughened. Only after the Mortal Forging realm would one be considered to have officially stepped onto the path of martial arts. Feng Jiao did not put these children with slow cultivation speeds in his eyes as only those who had already stepped onto the path of godhood could qualify as someone he’d consider a rival.

The martial tourney wrapped up with the winners all being noble children who were then brought into arms of the top sects that had recruited them in the past. With superior cultivation resources and hereditary talented martial spirits, the noble’s average cultivation was actually in the mid to late Mortal Sculpting Realm. From this alone, Feng Jiao could see the value of cultivation resources. The nobles were even younger than the others on average, their future looking much brighter than the mass number of commoners that had participated. 

Feng Jiao stood from where he’d been sitting with the female hopefuls of the God Tree Grove and wandered over to where the sect scouts were waiting to receive the disciples that had finished the martial tourney. He swiftly made eye contact with the cheerful young woman that had told him to speak with her after the tourney and wandered over while she beamed at him, obviously pleased with herself that day.